Computer doesn't run low specs games, something wr

ninahart wrote: My younger brother got a new computer, put together by one of his friends. It doesn't even run Fistful of Frags. Is this normal for these specifications? AMD FX4300 3.8GHZ MOTHERBOARD ASROCK N68-GS4FX MEMORY 4GB NVIDIA GEFORCE 7025

Your brother's friend didn't do him much of a favor.

The N68-GS4FX mother board is a budget ($50) board with a built in graphics chip that runs with a PCIe 1.0 interface. The PC does not have a video card, it has a very low end integrated graphics. What can be expected from built in graphics from the board's old Nvidia chipset, with these specifications:

- Integrated NVIDIA^® GeForce 7025 graphics
- DX9.0 VGA, Pixel Shader 3.0
- Max. shared memory 256MB
- Supports D-Sub with max. resolution up to 1920x1440 @ 60Hz

He would have been much better of with an AMD or Intel board with a CPU that has modern integrated graphics. While gamers don't consider these to be serious for gaming, they are leaps and bounds beyond the 7025 graphics.

This mother board is not marketed for PC gaming use at all. It is suitable for browsing the Internet and watching videos.

I would not suggest getting a video card to use with this board, since it only had a PCIe 1.0 interface.

Try this page to check its rating for playing that game:

http://www.game-debate.com/games/index.php?g_id=20306&game=Fistful+of+Frags&p_make=AMD&p_deriv=FX-4300&gc_make=Nvidia&gc_deriv=GeForce+7025+nForce+630a&ram=8&checkSubmit=#systemRequirements

Xaltar wrote: Parsec pretty much covered most of what I was going to say. The PC is using it's onboard (built into the Chipset) graphics. This is not the same as integrated graphics on modern CPUs like intel's Core family and AMD's APUs (FM2/+) which are much newer and are actually capable of playing modern games, albeit at lower settings. I have to disagree with Parsec in that your best bet with a system like this would be to get a discrete GPU, as Parsec noted, the board runs a PCIe 1.0 interface so you don't want to waste your money on a high end offering that would be bottlenecked. I am guessing you wouldn't want to spend much anyway so that shouldn't be an issue.  The best GPU to pair with a system like this for gaming purposes would be something like an R7 250/Radeon HD 7770/7790 or a Geforce GTX 650/750. None of these GPUs should bottleneck on the PCIe 1.0 x16 slot on that board. All of these will be able to play even the latest games at lower graphics settings. There are a lot of the older GPUs I listed available used for very reasonable prices if you don't want to spend more on a new one, just be careful buying used.

I don't disagree with you Xaltar, but I did not word my comment correctly, or make my point clear.

My point is, if your brother used a recent or new model graphics card with this board, he might not get the full level of performance from the card, because of its PCIe 1.0 interface on the PCIe x16 slot.

There certainly would be an improvement in gaming performance, but you would expect more if you used the link I included in my post above to evaluate its performance. New, low priced cards like the Nvidia 1050 models, or AMD 400 series support PCIe 3.0, but you would not be able to use the higher performance settings of these cards.

Another factor that influenced my initial comment, although I am not sure about this, is a difference in the power available from a PCIe 1.0 x16 slot, compared to the PCIe 2.1 specifications. That is based upon this statement I found:

PCI Express 2.1 (with its specification dated March 4, 2009) supports a large proportion of the management, support, and troubleshooting systems planned for full implementation in PCI Express 3.0. However, the speed is the same as PCI Express 2.0. Unfortunately, the increase in power from the slot breaks backward compatibility between PCI Express 2.1 cards and some older motherboards with 1.0/1.0a, but most motherboards with PCI Express 1.1 connectors are provided with a BIOS update by their manufacturers through utilities to support backward compatibility of cards with PCIe 2.1.

So I am uncertain about using modern graphics cards in that board's PCIe 1.0 slot.